The Unfitted Kitchen – why I need one now!

Why would anyone demolish a perfectly good, modern dream kitchen, and replace it with unfitted furniture pieces?? I promise Im not crazy!

Anyone who has ever renovated a kitchen knows. Its huge. The planning can go for months. Sometimes years! There are a million decisions to make, Pinterest board after Pinterest board will be created and edited, every kitchen redo site on Google researched. Imagine, if after all that your finished kitchen isn’t the dream fantasy you envisioned. It can be pretty confusing, and sometimes devastating.

This is what happened to me.

My perfect kitchen

I had for years, a vision in my mind of my perfect kitchen. White shaker doors, black bench tops, stainless appliances. Ornate mouldings, lining boards, corbels, you know the drill. A perfectly classic cottage kitchen.

When we first moved into our little Victorian workers cottage, the first thing I planned to renovate was the kitchen – a chipboard job from the 80s, falling apart and smelling of mildew. After searching for months on Facebook Marketplace for a used kitchen that would work, I finally found the perfect one for $1000. It was full timber, shaker doors, antique style hardware, black granite tops. I painted all the doors white, demolished the old kitchen, and installed my “dream kitchen”.

My new kitchen had everything I wanted, and as a stand alone kitchen, was so cottagy and lovely. Day after day, I would look at sections of it and see exactly what I had dreamed I would see. The pressed metal splashback against the linen white lining boards was a picture of cottage heaven. But still, as a whole, something was off. Way off. It took me 5 full years to figure out what.

The twist: Enter the Unfitted Kitchen

Then, one fine day, I stumbled across a YouTube video by Paige at Farmhouse Vernacular. After watching that video, and then obviously bingeing everything else on her channel, my “off” became so clear. Paige showed me that I wasn’t creating an old-fashioned cottage kitchen, I was just trying to disguise a modern kitchen. I was just putting a modern kitchen with old fashioned styling into a vintage space. What I should’ve done, was put a vintage kitchen into my vintage space! An unfitted kitchen!

For so long, I couldn’t figure out why my lovely cottage kitchen didn’t feel right. Finally I knew – I needed to completely rethink my whole kitchen. I began researching vintage kitchens, like not vintage styled, but actual vintage kitchens. I watched all of Paige’s videos. Soon it became clear to me, that when this house was built, it wouldn’t have had a kitchen that looked anything like what I put in. Even with the lining boards, the corbels, the pressed metal or the shaker doors. None of it. Its a workers cottage! It would’ve had a wood stove, a kitchen dresser, a pantry.

The lightbulb was on!

So I took Paige’s advice. I made a decision to listen to my cottage, and put back her old kitchen. It was a revelation to me and I have become so excited at the idea of actually RESTORING my kitchen, instead of renovating it. And do you know what? There have been no nasty surprises, no awful compromises. As Paige promised – an unfitted kitchen can be 100% as lovely and convenient as a modern kitchen. The old vintage style, the true cottage style, is what I love. Until now, I’ve been taking a modern product, and dressing it in vintage clothing. But by restoring this kitchen, I will be taking it way back to its authentic self.

I started with a list of things I knew my unfitted kitchen needed:

• An antique kitchen dresser
• An enamelled cast iron drainboard sink
• A pantry
• A few painted cabinets – with inset doors.

Then I set about planning the layout to achieve them all. I drew my floorplan, down to the last centimetre. I measured, and stepped out, and mocked up layouts with a chair and a broom and a compliant spouse standing very still. Then I drew, and scrubbed out, and changed my mind a hundred times. BUT I found a way. I have a plan.

My new old kitchen will have all the things on my list. Now, we just have to build it!

Stay tuned….

My unfitted cottage kitchen design – I finally have a plan that I love!